The behemoth hotel (the largest on Cayo Coco) sits on Playa Flamenco, one of the newest stretches of beach to be colonized by hotels, and is built “in the style of a sugar plantation” with 1176 rooms dotted about 25 buildings, some of which overlook the Caribbean. A central building will house the main buffet and bar, but there will be a “boulevard” with nine themed restaurants, handicraft stalls, sports facilities and pools. At night, there will be six bars and your typical all-inclusive live music.

By now, everyone's seen the images of a cigar-wielding Jay-Z, strolling hand in hand with his wife Beyonce through the streets of Old Havana. No doubt, Cuba is high on most of our travel wish lists, so it almost seemed unfair that the pair should not only be granted special licenses to travel there, but also parade around like royalty under the flashes of hundreds of paprazzi cameras.

Perhaps most memorable of all was a photo taken of them waving from their balcony at the Saratoga Hotel.

The 96-room hotel is pure Havana elegance: the three-sided, white-and-pink facade is wrapped with wrought-iron balconies; inside, the look is continued with marble staircases, plaster columns and large murals depicting Cuba's scenery. We like picturing Mr. and Mrs. Carter lounging on the rooftop pool, sunlight glinting off their Havana Club cocktails, teaching Blue Ivy how to dance the rumba.

Though the building itself dates back to 1933, the hotel recently re-opened in 2005, and remains Havana's top five-star hotel. Rooms feature big ol' claw foot tubs, double-glazed windows (to keep out the roaring Havana traffic noise), and views of the National Capitol Building across the street.

We're guessing Beyonce and Jay-Z opted for a top-floor suite, but for the rest of us normal folk (who will end up touring the city sans mob, rates start at $195/night.

See this scraggly, 50 year old French guy? His real name is Alain Roberts--but everybody knows him as 'Spiderman'. After this recorded practice scale at Cuba's Hotel Habana Libre, he's climbing the hotel for real today. With just his bare hands. And maybe some chalk.

This is the same guy who was banned from climbing The Shard in London, by a legal injunction, because the powers that be were so nervous. But, Roberts just shrugged his shoulders and set his sights elsewhere.

We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.

You know, most of the Killer Views we bring you are either shots of pretty mountains or pretty beaches. So here, how about this: now we're bringing you a shot of some pretty mountains in a place where there are also pretty beaches. See what we're doin' here?

This is a shot from Club Amigo Marea del Portillo, a fairly small, modest all-inclusive resort down in Cuba. And cheap, too: we checked on a couple nights in April and found an all-inclusive room for 26 Euros  about $37 USD. Nice, right?

This shot comes to us via Martin Cathrae, and it's the view as you're walking between your guest room and the "main area of the resort." If you can look past the Terracotta roof, you'd be happy to take in some good ol' Cuban views at under $50.

Perhaps (we hope) because these guests were on their honeymoon, hotel staff went to all the trouble of twisting and contorting a bunch of towels into this love-heart flanked by two, well, towel-people. Strange-looking people, though, because their arms start at the top of their heads. But the idea is sweet.

However, not only is the towel art completely over-the-top, there's even a handwritten note in the middle of the artwork--we're just bummed it's too small for us to read. What a pity that some of the time and effort used to create this whole towel origami thing wasn't used in modernizing the bedspread instead.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is one of the hotels that will allow its countrymen to stay there now.

Some big news on the Cuban tourism front today: Cubans can now stay in hotels that were typically reserved for foreign tourists.

Cubans will be allowed to stay in the hotels beginning at midnight Monday, said employees at several Havana hotels. Word of the change came from Tourism Ministry officials, the employees said.

Sadly, this initiative is largely symbolic as many Cubans can't afford the hotel room prices which range from $60 to more than $200 a night. The average income in the country is $20 a month.

For years under Fidel Castro's rules, Cubans could not stay in their own country's hotels but with the succession of Raul Castro, he has been lifting many restrictions such as allowing Cubans to own cellphones and computers. Again, these are mostly symbolic since average Cubans cannot afford such items.

Still this might create a mini-hotel boom for country's capital of Havana. The tourism ministry expects at least 10 hotels to be built between 2008 and 2010.

Since we Americans still can't travel to Cuba, we have a dearth of Cuban Hotel Stories. If you got any, send 'em our way. Photos always appreciated too.